Kerri-Anne v Yumi Stynes

[Black Orchid]

To Brian anyone who tries to draw attention to a problem, with a view to changing it, is a racist. He thinks that because there are educated aborigines who actually live amongst white people (shock horror) that we should leave it at that and just ignore those being abused elsewhere. We should certainly not try to help those abused and/or try to show them a different life. Why shouldn't they have the opportunity of an education and to live amongst whitey too?

If you disagree with Brian you are a racist, afraid of something/everything and a hater because he wants to cover up the appalling abuse of women and children that runs rife in Islam and amongst the outback aboriginal communities.

He will blame the Christians or the white man. Hell he will blame anyone except those at fault and. in the present, those at fault are people like Brian and his ilk. So wear his insults and name calling as a badge of honour that we won't bow down to these lunatic and rabidly insane progressives who just brush it under the carpet amidst their shrieks and futile attempts to ignore it.

[brian ross]

It is because so many of them were stolen as children from their parents and placed in foster homes that they have few real parenting examples to learn from. They were beaten and raped as children (by white people)

How many is "so many" Bri Bri?

An interesting question. I'll ignore your usual diatribe of ad huminem insults, IQ.

According to the Bringing Them Home report:

Estimating the numbers removed

It is not possible to state with any precision how many children were forcibly removed, even if that enquiry is confined to those removed officially. Many records have not survived. Others fail to record the children's Aboriginality.

Researchers have assisted the task by counting numbers of children in particular placements or in record series over particular periods. For example, historian Peter Read used official records to number Indigenous children removed in New South Wales between 1883 and 1969 at 5,625, warning as he did so that some of the record series were incomplete (1981 pages 8-9). South Australian researchers Christobel Mattingley and Ken Hampton found records relating to over 350 children entering Colebrook Home in the 54 years to 1981 (1992 page 219).

Another method is to survey adults and ask whether they were removed in childhood. Professor Ernest Hunter surveyed a sample of 600 Aboriginal people in the Kimberley region of WA in the late 1980s. One-quarter of the elderly people and one in seven of the middle-aged people reported having been removed in childhood (evidence 61).

Dr Max Kamien surveyed 320 adults in Bourke NSW in the 1970s. One in every three reported having been separated from their families in childhood for five or more years (cited by Hunter 1995 on page 378). Dr Jane McKendrick's findings are almost identical. She surveyed Victorian Aboriginal general medical practice patients in the late 1980s, 30% of whom reported having been removed: 20% to children's homes and another 10% to foster and adoptive families (cited by Hunter 1995 on page 378).

A national survey of Indigenous health in 1989 found that almost one-half (47%) of Aboriginal respondents of all ages had been separated from both parents in childhood. This very high proportion, which contrasted with a figure of only 7% for non-Indigenous people, must be read with some caution. Separation here includes hospitalisation and juvenile detention in addition to removal. It may also include living with family members other than parents for a period (National Aboriginal Health Strategy Working Party 1989 page 175).

More recent surveys are likely to understate the extent of removal because many of those removed during the early periods of the practice are now deceased. The 1994 Australian Bureau of Statistics survey of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders revealed 10% of people aged 25 and above had been removed in childhood (1995a page 2). Such surveys cannot capture the experiences of those people whose Aboriginality is now unknown even to themselves.

A further complicating factor is that although forcible removal affected every region of Australia it seems to have been more or less intense according to the period, the available resources and the `visibility' of, in particular, children of `mixed descent'. Nationally we can conclude with confidence that between one in three and one in ten Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families and communities in the period from approximately 1910 until 1970. In certain regions and in certain periods the figure was undoubtedly much greater than one in ten. In that time not one Indigenous family has escaped the effects of forcible removal (confirmed by representatives of the Queensland and WA Governments in evidence to the Inquiry). Most families have been affected, in one or more generations, by the forcible removal of one or more children.

[Source]

So, effectively most Indigenous Australian families have been affected at one time or another by forcible removal.

However, there are flaws with the approach used to create this estimation. The numbers of respondents is low, however the State governments concerned have made admission of the effects of their policies, which is telling by itself.

Oh, and before you claim no court case proving a child was "stolen" or illegally removed from their parents (effectively the meme is usually, "Oh, they asked for them to be taken away..."), there have been several court successful court cases - one in NSW (Valerie Linow), one in South Australia (Bruce Trevorrow) and two in Victoria (whose names presently escape me at the moment). However such cases are difficult to prove because of the patchy and often self-serving documentation that State representatives kept regarding the removal of children.

Indigenous children were forcibly removed, usually without parent's permission or understanding of the consequences of removal. The State just wanted to turn Indigenous children into little white people, white people just hated them anyway. Let me guess you're one of those people, IQ?

[brian ross]

How many Indigenous Australians do you know, personally, Cods? Any at all? I

yes one I have mentioned him a few times TREVOR lives still I believe in Perth...he stayed with my family for Easter one year

my first encounter up close with dreadlocks... I wanted to say something to him because it was cold in ACT and he went everywhere barefoot....I kept having to pull myself up and say hes used to it...I found him to be a very good example of a full blooded aussie to be honest he called bullshite to people like you partonising idiots who claim the past makes us all SAD....

yeah ask the Germans if they wear their past like a badge of honor...

you like the PITY POOR ME grandstanding you like our aboriginals being weak and dependent because it makes you feel "grand"...makes YOU feel superior... well I dont feel superior to aboriginals I just get frustrated they dont get on with tomorrow and leave the past where it belongs stop using the past to be lazy.. get off your arse and make changes only aboriginals can make changes to their state of mind... not whitey.

Wow, you met one Indigenous Australian over a period of say, lets be generous a week or so?

I have known Indigenous people for most of my life, Cods. I have several indigenous cousins. I have served with Indigenous soldiers. I have worked with Indigenous students. I don't claim to know all their lives or all their problems but at least I try and understand and am not dismissive of them and their experiences, unlike many here and elsewhere online.

What annoys me is that you get angry at people expressing themselves when their views differ from your own. You're dismissive of their views and look upon them with contempt - well perhaps not quite contempt, I will concede. Valkie looks upon people with contempt, you just don't like people who disagree with you. Fine, you're entitled to do that but it annoys the hell out of me when you dismiss their life experiences so readily.

Indigenous Australians have have been hard done by for generations. They have had their families destroyed, their clans destroyed, their tribes destroyed, their religion destroyed, their lands stolen. They have been starved, they have had their wages stolen. They have been basically treated like shit and you claim it is all in the past and has no effect on them? Really? Bullshit, Cods. You're a woman who's never experienced real hardship in your life. You have no idea what it is to see the police take your children away, to be told to move off your land, to be told that you cannot earn a living, that you are worthless, that your continued existence is an embarrassment.

Until you are willing to walk a mile in their shoes, your views are pointless.

[Black Orchid]

What annoys me is that you get angry at people expressing themselves when their views differ from your own. You're dismissive of their views and look upon them with contempt -

Pot kettle Brian. No mirrors at your house?

[brian ross]

To Brian anyone who tries to draw attention to a problem, with a view to changing it, is a racist.

Wrong, Black Orchid. Yet again you attack me for pointing out the way in which people describe and discuss problems are often Racist. The methods for changing a fixing a problem can also often be Racist if expressed in Racist manner. Racism is an underlying attitude that people like your heroine Kerri-Anne have. Not all all Indigenous people are raped or suffer domestic abuse. Some do. Some are more likely to suffer those things than White people. Not all do, nor do they ignore these problems, either. Some people believe if we fix the underlying causes for these things, they will be fixed. Personally, I believe we can hold more than one or two thoughts in our heads simultaneously and we can work to fix them simultaneously.

He thinks that because there are educated aborigines who actually live amongst white people (shock horror) that we should leave it at that and just ignore those being abused elsewhere. We should certainly not try to help those abused and/or try to show them a different life. Why shouldn't they have the opportunity of an education and to live amongst whitey too?

Putting words into my mouth, White woman? Erecting strawmen arguments? How unusual for you, hey? Typical response from a Tory who refuses to think about why people are in the situation they are, today.

If you disagree with Brian you are a racist, afraid of something/everything and a hater because he wants to cover up the appalling abuse of women and children that runs rife in Islam and amongst the outback aboriginal communities.

Putting words into my mouth, White woman? Erecting strawmen arguments? How unusual for you, hey? Typical response from a Tory who refuses to think about why people are in the situation they are, today.

He will blame the Christians or the white man. Hell he will blame anyone except those at fault and. in the present, those at fault are people like Brian and his ilk. So wear his insults and name calling as a badge of honour that we won't bow down to these lunatic and rabidly insane progressives who just brush it under the carpet amidst their shrieks and futile attempts to ignore it.

Putting words into my mouth, White woman? Erecting strawmen arguments? How unusual for you, hey? Typical response from a Tory who refuses to think about why people are in the situation they are, today.

I blame those who are responsible, in this case, yes, white people. They have created the current situation that many Indigenous people find themselves in.

Tell me, Black Orchid, ever visited Broome? You might be in for a surprise if you do. Guess who basically owns and runs the town? Indigenous Australians. Guess what? No problems there. When given the chance and where necessary, the guidance, they can do quite well for themselves.

[Black Orchid]

YAWN

[brian ross]

What annoys me is that you get angry at people expressing themselves when their views differ from your own. You're dismissive of their views and look upon them with contempt -

Pot kettle Brian. No mirrors at your house?

Why didn't you quote the rest of the paragraph, Black Orchid?

- well perhaps not quite contempt, I will concede. Valkie looks upon people with contempt, you just don't like people who disagree with you. Fine, you're entitled to do that but it annoys the hell out of me when you dismiss their life experiences so readily.

It refutes the image you're trying to present of me. Tut, tut, don't worry, it's all on record...

[brian ross]

YAWN

[Black Orchid]

It refutes the image you're trying to present of me. Tut, tut, don't worry, it's all on record...

You present your own image Brian and yes it is all on record

[Valkie]

And the reasons so many abbos are taken from their parents are......
Rape
Abuse
Alcoholism
Laziness

They just don't get it.
We try to help them, they cry racist
We give them money, they cry racist
We give them land, they cry racist

Ok, here's an idea
STOP TAKING ALL THE HANDOUTS FROM YOUR OPPRESSORS AND GET OFF YOUR BUMS AND DO SOMETHING CONSTRUCTIVE.